The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for acquiring a pre-stored identifier based on at least one input identifier and, in particular, to a method and apparatus that acquires this pre-stored identifier by first generating N selection identifiers and selecting from these N selection identifiers the identifier that matches the desired pre-stored identifier.
The increasingly competitive nature of business, whether it occurs on a regional, national, or even international scale, has imposed on companies the incentive to seek out new avenues for achieving comparative advantage over their competitors. In pursuit of such advantages, companies seek ways to attract new customers and at the same time raise the satisfaction and value that existing customers already receive. In certain markets, one way to achieve this is through improving customer assistance. Since many companies have a large customer base that is oftentimes spread out over a vast geographic area, the only feasible way for a company to provide broad customer service access is to implement a communication network that can handle inquiries from customers. One way such customer service is implemented is a customer service center that can be remotely accessed by customers either on the telephone or through an Internet or other computer-based link.
Once a call is received at the customer service center, the next task is to identify who the customer is. This task is not without difficulty, especially in companies that have millions of customers. Usually, each customer is uniquely identified by an account number that is maintained on a database, and each account number is in turn associated with information that is pertinent to the particular customer for whom the account number was generated. For example, in a remote access merchandise center, each account number may be associated with not only a current merchandise order, but also with an historical record of purchases made by each customer. For purposes of this discussion, customer account numbers are included within a class of information referred to herein as identifiers; each identifier is a collection of numbers, letters, typographical characters, or any combination thereof. Moreover, the identifiers may be pronounced as words or on a character-by-character basis, the latter type of pronunciations being referred to as phonetic aggregations. In order to pair a caller with a particular account number (identifier), such remote access systems must first require the caller to enter his account number, either through a touch-tone keypad, or, more recently, by speaking into a voice input device that is coupled to speech recognition technology. After receiving an input account number, the system searches throughout the entire customer database for that one account number. Depending on the customer base, such a search can be time-consuming and can deplete processing resources that could otherwise be put to more efficient uses. Therefore, what is needed is a system that simplifies the manner in which a system can identify a user trying to gain access thereto.